Chelinda

20 July 2014

After waiting for 2 days for the park to have a vehicle that could take me and the university students into Chelinda, I got lucky and found an early morning ride on Tuesday with two Swiss tourists and their 3(!) safari guides/drivers. They had room in the covered bed of their pickup truck and were leaving again in two days. I laid back in the bed and enjoyed the luxury (no joke, this ride was awesome compared to most).

This ended up being a smart decision. I arrived at the small village and ‘resort’ before noon. Transport was largely uneventful except for some zebras close to the car as we neared Chelinda (no time for a photo ) The university students arrived near 10 pm, were cold, and their trip took almost twice as long.

The views on the drive in are fantastic. Scenery slowly shifts from seemingly endless Brachystega woodland to rolling hills of short grass interspersed with towers of bare rock and forest in the damp parts of the valleys. By the time you reach Chelinda it is nothing but grassland as far as the eye can see, with one very prominent exception. The Chelinda area sticks out like a sore thumb.

The village has ~200 people not counting the guests (currently very few). The whole area backs up onto a tremendous pine plantation, and the village area is scattered with blue gum trees (Eucalyptus). The weather is damn cold and regularly misty for hours. The village houses are constructed from great pine planks, layered like shingles – very un-Malawi like. The upscale (in cost) Chelinda lodge looks as though it belongs in the Swiss Alps. The whole scene is surreal given the context of location and feels as though it has been plucked from an entirely different continent.

I get to spend my nights in the simple youth hostel for free. It is decorated with paintings of animals from the park and has three old elephant jawbones that are speckled with lichen sitting outside one of the huts. I have brought some rice and sweet potatoes to hold me over for the time I am there. I buy some mpangwe (mustard greens) for 20 kwacha to accompany my dinner.

I have come to meet with the assistant park manager, who is also the research manager, in order to discuss the possibility of conducting my own ecology research project in addition to my other Peace Corps duties. I also want to talk about another possible project with the manager of the safari company. Wilderness Safaris currently holds the park concession at Chelinda for the tourist lodge and camp and I have some rough ideas for an eco-tourism project that could benefit the people of Thazima and also the safari company. I will keep you posted on this if any of it seems feasible to pursue working on.

Unfortunately the manager of the safari company is busy and leaving early the next day so I will miss that opportunity and with the research officer also out I have some time to kill. I am limited in the few areas that I can access by myself on foot but over the next few days I explore all of them (though I am later told that as a park employee this restriction does not hold for me).

Here is a short list of the things I see: Roan, Sable, Eland, Reedbuck, Zebra, Bushbuck so close I could tackle one should I choose, some large buzzards, and a day old leopard kill that is gone the next day along with leopard scat and foot prints but no leopards! Next time I hope….

  I also walk through the pine plantation. It is so vast and the trees so large that the sky darkens as you enter and all you can see are the trunks of trees. Exceptionally few animals can use the pine woods and no native plants grow there. The wind howls in the treetops and the trunks sway and creak. It is beautiful, haunting, and slightly depressing. The pine and blue gum are over 50 years old and are monstrous in size. I shudder at the thought of one tipping and squashing me flat – I have been told they collapse on occasion and it has caused damage to buildings in the area.

My meeting with the research officer is productive and it seems like I will get to come up with my own project for studying the reptiles/amphibians around Thazima and I will also get to contribute to other research projects in the park when time and transport allows. I will now have to think up a project.

After 2 days and nights of shivering and spending the time with a constant cold in my fingers and toes I am eager to get back to my village. The same Swiss couple that gave me a ride in also share a meal with me and  provide some very pleasant conversation. I am quite grateful as they are willing to give me another ride back out early Thursday morning. Overall it was a great experience and I look forward to braving the road in the rainy season when over 200 species of orchid are in bloom.

I have come to Mzuzu for the weekend to get some work done for Peace Corps and to use the good internet to update this blog. Next week I hope to build an improved cook stove at my house in order to teach my neighbors, counterpart and supervisor. I also hope to take the community elected leaders of the tree nursery into Rumphi for meeting with Total Land Care! This is particularly exciting to me as I plan to make agroforestry one of the main focuses of my time here.

It should be some time before my next blog post goes up – I won’t have much internet over the next month and hope to be fairly busy. I have been elected to be a part of the Man Panel (Manel for short) of a female youth empowerment camp that Peace Corps is hosting in Lilongwe in early August. I will get to candidly answer anonymously posted questions from Malawian 2ndary school girls (high school age). The purpose is for them to get honest answers to questions that they might not otherwise be socially able to ask of men. Expect more updates around that time and some photos later this weekend.


Cheers!

The woods are my church

14 July 2014

Yesterday my alarm went off at 5am. I hit snooze until I was sufficiently satisfied with my Zz’s and finally awoke at 5:30. I looked out at Bwerumbwe hill, a nearby mountain inside of the park and my destination for the morning. The sky was a dusty ochre hue with highlights of amber. A halo of deep red surrounded the peak. It was still dark enough that I needed my headlamp as I dressed and inhaled my breakfast of cold oatmeal. I was anxious to start my hike, hopeful to see some animals in the early morning hours.

By 5:45 the cloudless sky had turned to shades of pink, peach, orange. I began my 1km walk through town, thankful that it is early enough on a Sunday that few people were awake enough to want to stop and chat. I wanted only the quiet and comfort of a morning spent in the woods alone. As I passed the gate and walked on the path that passes through the park employees housing complex my thoughts begin to ramble… Eager to escape the rising sounds of humanity I pick up my pace.

The ceaseless cackle of roosters begins to diminish behind me and I finally slow when I reach the fire road that descends to the creek that marks the start of the long climb to the crest of Bwerumbwe. Today the air is particularly frigid, lower 40’s. I am bundled against the cold, hands deep inside the pockets of my light jacket and my ski cap pulled tight against numb ears. The sharp chill makes my sunburnt nose feel wet, my eyes water and cheeks sting. I have slowly become accustomed to the morning temperatures, always just cool enough that I start every day with it deep in my bones.
I shake off a shiver as I listen to the birds come to life while the daylight brightens. The fire road borders a long leaf pine plantation on my right and as I walk the sounds of dew falling from the musuku trees on my left repeatedly give me pause, causing me to think I am hearing the snapping of twigs made by a fleeing animal. The path eventually turns to the right, becoming single track, and takes me into the pines. This stretch is eerily silent; the non-native trees give few local animals reason to use this space. The undergrowth is sparse, here and there stunted native plants struggle to survive against the poison released by the pine needles.

I come across an old pile of elephant dung, long since engulfed and then abandoned by termites. It gives me reason to think on why I woke so early. I would love to see an elephant so close to my home and to the park boundary. It is unlikely to happen, but this is the time of day for it. I have already been fortunate enough to see some on an earlier day trip into the park with the local beekeepers group. A family of 8 had walked in line into the bush as our truck drove slowly by. I remember the bull male made an imposing visage, standing guard with his ears flared and trunk held high while the rest of his troupe slipped into the woods.

What I really want to see though is a leopard. Oh how I wish to see a leopard! The locals tell me one lives on Thazima hill, the mountain that my house backs up to, and the last time I hiked Bwerumbwe I found some leopard scat. Apart from some klipspringers that we glimpsed for only a second, scat was about the only thing we found on that hike. I was accompanied by 3 university students who were far too loud to allow for any animal sightings. This time it is just me, and with the day free of obligations, I could take all the time I needed.

It is not long before I am rewarded. Shortly after leaving the pine strip I hear a twig snap and the swish of grass being parted. I freeze in place, waiting for my guest to appear. To my right, 30 meters off, the silhouette of a bush pig comes into view and I immediately drop to a crouch. He moves in short bursts – quickly moving a few feet then stopping to listen. This repeats several times and for a few moments I think he may pass right in front of me.

If there ever was a time I would call a pig beautiful, this is it. He is large, much stouter than I expected. I would guess in the range of 80lbs. His coat is mottled in black spots and a simple but clean reddish/tan fur. Long wisps of hair swirl about his face and give image to a small beard. Suddenly he gives an extended pause, sniffing the air vigorously. I am immediately aware of the steam coming from my breath. He turns away, holds for a moment more, and then vanishes into a thicket.

Soon afterwards I cross the stream. It is a simple, elegant thing that steadily burbles as it carves a path through the granite bed. By this time the sky is a milky white, the color of baby’s breath and giving hint to the clear blue sky of day. The sun is barely hidden behind the mountain, surely shining on the other side of the valley. It is warm enough that I can take my hands from my pockets and lift my cap above my ears in the hopes of hearing something new.

Apart from the wonderful views of rocky, boulder strewn woodland, the hike up is largely uneventful. I pause often, half to strain my ears for sounds of wildlife and half for the sake of catching my breath – exercise has hardly been part of my routine lately and my lungs struggle to keep pace with my feet. The view of the peak is obscured by trees and just before coming upon it I hear a strange grunting noise from my right as a bushbuck slips away on my left.

The top of Bwerumbwe is marked by two large rocky outcroppings. The first of which is capped with a stone hut that the park installed along with a relay tower for staff radios. The hut reminds me of images of montane Europe and the relay tower has long since collapsed – its guide wires cut in the night by poachers some time back. I drop my bag and shed my jacket in the rising morning temperature. It is now 7:30 and the sun is well in the sky. The woods are fully alive with the hum of insects. Several times I am buzzed by bumble bees larger than my thumb as I sit on the cliff staring into the park below. I have borrowed some old military binoculars and scan the area.

I discover two bushbucks 1km away on the valley floor and follow them for 10 min before finally losing sight of them. As I get up and take a few steps to the other side of the hut a male klipspringer sprints down the hill and hides behind some trees. He is followed by a female who stops atop a boulder, back to me but neck craned and eyes fixed, ready to flee. She repeats a very loud nasal warning grunt that surprises me given her small size. A tiny thing, weighing only ~25 lb at most. 1/3 of the weight seems to be in the thighs, a product of a life spent jumping from rock to rock.

I am nearly still, the only movement my hands as I scroll with the binoculars. She must be curious to find if I am friend or foe, she has turned to face me. Painted in a raccoon like guise, her eyes are locked to mine. For a full 5 minutes she grunts her alarm call, occasionally supplementing it with a small bounce of her front legs. The resulting crack from her hooves striking the rock echoes a sharp report in the area around me. Her call has been answered by a third klipspringer, another male. Eventually they regroup beneath a tree 50 meters away and linger in the area for 20 minutes before they decide I am not worth their time and move around the other side of the hill.

I spend another half hour or so on the second outcropping, a tremendous monolith with the best view in the area, before I finally begin my descent. I am sweating and in a T-shirt by the time I reach the stream. It is around 10 am and the temp has climbed steadily to the mid 70’s. This swing in temperature is common during the cold season and most pronounced on sunny days like this one.

Before the sounds of humanity reach my ears again I spend the last of the walk contemplating. I think about what it means to me to turn 31, to spend this time on a new continent, the work I hope to do and how I am happy to be here but simultaneously lonely for so many friends back home. Eventually I hear the pounding of maize and the howls of children and my thoughts turn more to the day at hand.

I did not get to see a leopard, maybe luck will be with me this week. This afternoon I am supposed to leave for Chelinda, the camp/village in the center of Nyika National Park. I am going with the university students (they are from the University of Livingstonia, Malawi) for some training on park research and a meeting with the manager of the safari lodge there.

I am bringing my camera this time.

Meetings, Counterparts, Activities and stuff

12 July 2014

It’s been over a month since I have sat down to write. With my counterpart coming back on duty from his yearly mandated leave, and me falling into far more comfortable of a routine, there has been less compelling material for me to write about. Here is what I have been up to lately.

Mid June my counterpart and I did our first community development tool. We had a community meeting to draw a map of Thazima. This is one of the initial tools that Peace Corps encourages us to use early on in our time at site. The purpose is less to give me a map of the Thazima and more to introduce me to the community and to get them talking to each other and thinking about making changes in the area.

We split them into 4 groups: men, women, girls and boys. This gives each group its own voice – that way no group is overshadowed which often happens if done all together. It also highlights the different ways each group functions and shows the different views and uses each group has of the surrounding area.

The meeting was scheduled for 8 am.

I have become completely accustomed to what us volunteers now call ‘Africa time’ – That is to say that patience is more than a virtue and things will happen when they happen. You become used to events starting hours later than planned, transportation having unpleasantly long delays, people not showing up etc. etc. People have to take care of their homes and families first: Food needs to be cooked, water fetched, the field tended, the house cleaned or repaired, and the list goes on. My counterpart and I take this time to discuss our current projects and activities, and to plan future community events.

As per usual, the meeting started at 1030, over 2 hours ‘late’. I was lucky as 56 people showed up, most of them youth, but I had enough men and women to make a go of it. The maps turned out well (though surprisingly simple compared to the ones we had our villages make in training) but I gleaned more than a fair bit of information from the activity about community behavior. Surprisingly the young girls, very reluctant at first, ended up really embracing the project and turned out the best map. I think my counterpart was the one to gain the most from the activity though, He claimed it has taught him new ways of viewing and interacting with the villages in his catchment area.

At this moment I am taking advantage of ‘Africa time’ again while I wait on the start of another set of meetings. The first is to make a seasonal calendar for the community. This is another development tool that helps my counterpart and I to better plan projects so as not to interfere with the community needs, to further educate my counterpart on how to initiate development with a new area, and to continue to build community familiarity with my presence and purpose. I am taking advantage of this time to think about possible projects and how to approach them.

The second meeting is to start the committee for the community tree nursery. I am setting up all projects I do so that the community has ownership of them and learns from available local resources so they will be better able to solve problems and manage projects on their own after I leave in 2016. The goal of this is to make the projects more sustainable and impactful. Let’s hope it works out that way. The community is going to elect a committee to take charge of the nursery. They will choose a representative who I will guide through the process of finding local NGO’s that can teach them about starting and maintaining the nursery. This representative will then bring the NGO to teach the community. We are planning on using Total Land Care as they have an office in nearby Rumphi Boma.

With all of these activities I first teach my counterpart what I know and work until it seems he has a strong understanding and then have him take the reigns and lead the activity when it happens – This is so that he can initiate them on his own in other communities and effectively (I hope) create the same sense of ownership we are trying to instill here. He is a good leader and comfortable in the role of public speaker and facilitator, my work would be exceedingly more difficult without him.

About my counterpart… M.C. Khunga is in his early 40’s. (That really is his name – Musandivute Chizizimu Khunga) He is ~5’8" and extremely lithe - maybe 140 lbs and all of it muscle. His voice is deep, gruff, and raspy with a hint of melody. The first time I met him one of my friends said he sounded like the rapper DMX. Except for an extremely thin goatee that comes and goes he is generally clean shaven. When not in uniform he always wears a baseball cap with the number 32, a black button up collared shirt with thin neon blue and green stripes, color matching flip flops, and dress slacks. Everyone here seems to wear dress pants at all times, even when working in the field. When on duty he wears park issue military fatigues branded with the Malawi National Parks emblem and carries an M16A1. A relic of a firearm that likely saw service in Vietnam, branded with ‘property of the US govt’ below the receiver.

M.C. Khunga is an Education and Extension officer for the national parks system. He has worked for MNP since 1991 and has alternated between Ed. & Ext. and Wildlife management throughout that period. He has lived in Thazima since 2006 and for 3 years prior (1997-2000). I am extremely lucky to be working with him. He knows the communities and the areas around Nyika well. He is motivated and eager to learn and is aware that he needs to teach me every bit as much as I am teaching him.
When I first asked him why he wanted to work with the park system he said it was because he had a love for it. His personality feels a perfect pairing for me. He is typically serious and focused - with his demeanor matching his burly vocal affectation – but with frequent bursts of laughter emanating deep from his belly, belying his small size. He smiles big, and when you look at his eyes you know it is genuine.

I have become convinced that we will accomplish much here in Thazima and the other areas that we will work. I just hope that some of it holds up after I am finished and that at least a few people take the lessons to heart.